Vancouver, CANADA – Purely CRM worked with Rimex to successfully implement the latest release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM optimized for Rimex’s unique business processes producing wheels and rims across the globe. This implementation replaced Rimex’s legacy sales management system, providing efficiency improvements in the manufacturing to sales process, integrations into their ERP system, and integration with their Microsoft Office Suite of tools.

With the completed project, Adam Henn, one of the main contacts from Rimex on the project said, “You can now convert a quote directly into an order and have it go straight into the ERP system. This now means there is a quicker turnaround from the manufacturing floor to the customer in the field. Another benefit has been the ability to give the customer accurate time estimates for the delivery of their custom wheels and rims before they actually receive the product. That has, in turn, allowed us to better control the pricing of the products. It’s a much more strategic way of pricing products but also competitive at the same time.”

“Focusing on business processes first, instead of technology first, allows us to truly focus on adding value through technology,” said Ron De Giusti, Partner at Purely CRM. “Most technology companies focus on the technology more than the business process, but we strongly believe that technology solely exists to streamline your processes and not the other way around and this could not be more pertinent than with CRM.”

RIMEX is the leading custom manufacturer of all off road wheel and rim assemblies. RIMEX’s primary markets include mining, forestry, agriculture and industrial equipment, specializing in haul trucks and loaders. Established in 1976, RIMEX has 40 years experience custom manufacturing wheels and rims for some of the world’s largest and most demanding vehicles.

Purely CRM is a privately held company that is 100% focused on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM product with customers across North America. As a team, they have been involved with Microsoft Dynamics CRM since version 1.0. Purely CRM has made the strategic decision to solely focus on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM product and brings industry expertise in such areas as mining, manufacturing, banking, and many more.

Thank you to Rimex for joining us in an interview on how our CRM integrations have helped their manufacturing processes. Watch the video below for our in-depth interview on what a difference CRM has made for them.

WHAT SHOULD BE MEASURED?

Measuring your project can mean more than simply measuring tasks against a timeline. You can also measure how well you are meeting project objectives, costs, scope changes, and risks.

Although each of the items mentioned are important in their own right, they may or may not make it in to your regular project reporting. Most companies will opt for a simple report showing budget, timeline, and risks.

SO, HOW BIG SHOULD THE REPORT BE?

For most projects, a one-page report is ideal. If someone wants further details, they can always drill further into other more detailed reports.

Toyota introduced their one-page project management report that everyone talks about. They called their report the A4 report. It was called the A4 report because it was produced on one piece of A4 paper. In North America, we would use a standard letter sized piece of paper (8.5” X 11”) in place of A4 paper.

HOW OFTEN SHOULD I PRODUCE PROJECT REPORTS?

Of course, the size of your project would dictate how often your reports should be produced. For most software projects, a weekly report is the recommended standard. This provides resources enough time to get their weekly time-sheets in and using a Project Manager once a week to do this ties to the standard 20% utilization rate that is expected of them.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT NUMBER?

The “estimate to complete” (ETC) number is most likely your most important number. You will want to take your “actual time spent” number, add your “estimate to complete” number, and arrive at your “estimate at completion” (EAC) number to see if you are going to trend over or under against the original budget (i.e., estimate).

UNIFIED USER INTERFACE

For a simpler and more consistent user experience, all interfaces are now fully unified as of the Spring release, with the web browsers as an intermediate interface so far. The web browsers will move to a fully unified interface in the Fall 2017 release. Many common complaints and modernizations have been addressed, as well as tabs returning to the web interface instead of the dropdown menu. Multi-select option sets are coming too! There will be no more need to simulate a multi-select option set.

BUSINESS EDITION

The long-awaited Business edition plan is finally launching, suitable for SMB companies (<250 users). Simple to set-up and low cost, it is an easy starting point to purchase needed apps. As your organization grows, it will be easy to upgrade to the Enterprise plans. However, this update is delayed from June 1st to September 1st due to a big launch for the product that is scheduled at that time.

DYNAMICS MARKETING

A new and improved Marketing app is launching, with a much better module compared to the old module. There is a directional move towards the Adobe Marketing Cloud as a preferred solution, once Adobe has finished integrating with Cloud 365. This will be available for Business plan customers and Enterprise plans.

Get to know your client

Completing a project does not only include meeting deadlines and completing tasks. Knowing your client and taking the time to fully understand their wants and needs can allow you to incorporate more elements that make that product specific to the company. In taking the time to understand them, it strengthens the connection between you and your client, creating a more well-rounded product.

All hands on deck

Essential for an efficient project, the team must work like a well-oiled machine. In working together to achieve the project’s goals, it ensures that all ideas and opinions are heard, optimizing your team’s productivity and problem-solving abilities. With deadlines fast approaching, it will be guaranteed that your team will always be on time.

Know your product

As the creator, you have to know all the ins and outs of your product. Without thorough knowledge, your product will not meet your client’s expectations, much less your own. To maximize efficiency, that knowledge is key. Along the way, your client may have different requests and expectations, or problems may arise. Knowing your product will let you give better or alternate solutions to what your customer is asking for, allowing you to give the best product that you can within the scope of your client.

I want to show you how to hide/display a button on the command bar based on a field value on a related entity.

Here's how you do it!

As an example we have a custom entity called “Contact Role” and we want to hide the delete button on the command bar based on a field value on another entity called “Role”. Contact Role has a 1-to-many relationship with “Role”. On “Role” entity, there is a field called “Professional Only”. If this field’s value is equal to Yes, then we want to hide the delete button on Contact Role record, otherwise we display it:

1) First we need to use the REST service to get the value of the "Professional Only" field:

2) The next step is to use Ribbon Workbench. On Ribbon Workbench we need to add a display rule that can detect the current user’s permissions for a specific entity. Choose Contact Role entity on the Entities Navigation panel. Right click on Display Rules and add a “EntityPrivilegeRule” with “AppliesTo” set to PrimaryEntity, “PrivilegeDepth” set to Basic and “PrivilegeType” set to Delete

3) We also need to add several 'Enable Rules':

a) First we need to attach the REST service to an Enable Rule. Right click on Enable Rules and Add New rule. Right click on the act.act_contactrole.DeleteButton.EnableRule and Add Rule. Select Custom Javascript Rule.

On the right pane set “Default” to False, “FunctionName” to your Javascript function, “InvertResult” to False, and Library to your Javascript library.

b) Add another Enable Rule and call it Mscrm.CanDeletePrimary. Right click on this rule and add the rule with the type “RecordPrivilegeRule”. On the right pane, set the “AppliesTo” to PrimaryEntity and “PrivilegeType” to Delete

c) Add the last Enable Rule and call it Mscrm.FormStateRule. Right click on this rule and add the type “FormStateRule”. On the right pane, set “InvertResult” to True and “State” to Create as we want to hide the delete button before we’re saving a record.

Now when you go back to the contact role entity if the "Professional Only" field is equal to Yes the delete button is hidden.

It was amazing to see so many of our customers come out to the Purely CRM 2015 Holiday party this year. We were honoured with the opportunity to see so many of our clients in a casual setting like we had. We would like to thank each and every one of you who had the opportunity to come out and mingle with us. Next year we will have to pick an even larger venue!

A Fabulous Year

We can not believe that another year has already past! The time just flies when you spend the time doing what you love and have great, great customers. We have been growing so fast that we have actually had to move offices twice this year because we have simply outgrown our old spaces. Not only has our customer base grown, but our staff have grown enormously as well. We all look forward to finishing up the year with a full head of steam and continuing to service our customers with what we love to do most: consult on customer relationship management software.

With an open floor plan concept and multiple breakout spaces, Purely CRM's new office is a fabulous place to work. In addition to the functional aspects of the work space, the aesthetics of the exposed brick, the old growth lumber, and the spiral staircase in the entrance way add a level of interest to the space.

Twelve specialized CRM experts. One office.

The Vancouver office is home to twelve specialized Dynamics CRM consultants. These consultants are currently working on various Dynamics CRM projects in BC, Alberta, and North Carolina. Each one focused specifically on customer relationship management projects with a focus on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

As I write this I am sitting on a plane bound for Edmonton. Wondering how best to consume my time over the next hour or so, my thoughts focus in on the fact that Purely CRM have just celebrated our first birthday and have been in business for one year.

Much has changed over that time and as a company we continue to grow from strength to strength. In fact, I am sharing this journey with two members of the Purely CRM team. We are flying out to work with our client in Edmonton. One of those sharing this journey being a new Partner in our business and the other being our first employee. Indeed much has changed from those early days.

On our starting day we actually had no office. Well, let’s say that certain local coffee shops proved invaluable over that period and served as a wonderful office space when we needed to meet up. Quickly this proved inadequate and we moved into our first office in Gastown, Vancouver. This office was so small in fact that with three people in there it was, let’s say, crowded.

We have recently moved into our spacious new Yaletown Office, which we share with our friends and colleagues, FilmRobot. They are a remarkable, growing company who have some seriously awesome guys working for them.

Over the year we have consistently been striving to provide our customers with the best Dynamics CRM resources in the Vancouver area. Those resources in turn have produced an extraordinary quality of work and our customers are benefiting from this.

The Purely CRM team each have many years of CRM experience, and some with multiple CRM systems. Our first employee was chosen for his outstanding academics and rich development experience and is already an invaluable member of the Purely CRM family.

We still believe as we did a year ago that our customers want specialist CRM consultants with specialist CRM knowledge and experience.

We plan to fully introduce our new Partner and first employee in subsequent posts. We also believe that this is crucial to our business as our customers want to know exactly who they are sharing their crucial business plans with.

Thank you to all our customers for making our first year so successful. Thank you for believing in us at Purely CRM. We believe in our customers and we believe in our resources. This is our differentiator from our competitors and nothing has changed since our launch, nor will it.

Daniel B. Kline recently wrote an article for The Motley Fool where he quotes Satya Nadella in a letter he wrote to Microsoft employees ...

First, we will reinvent productivity services for digital work that span all devices. We will also extend our experience footprint by building more business process experiences, integrated into content authoring and consumption, communication and collaboration tools.

All these experiences will be powered by our cloud platform — a cloud that provides our customers faster time to value, improved agility and cost reduction, and solutions that differentiate their business.

This puts Microsoft Dynamics CRM clearly in the role of playing a platform. This is good news. We are finally seeing a direction provided by Microsoft leadership and it is generally in line with the direction that the tech community would like it to go on.

In many ways, Cloud & Enterprise is actually a more natural home for Dynamics, because the value of what Microsoft wants to deliver is less a commodity IT system like email or document storage, and more a strategic tool for managing the way your business works. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella referred to these as “systems of intelligence” at Microsoft’s Convergence 2015 conference earlier this year, talking about “the reinvention of productivity and business process” together, because improving productivity is so deeply linked to improving both business applications and business processes. That’s much more than simply moving to the cloud for agility or cost savings.

Launched in April this year, App Services brings together a wide range of Microsoft services in an easy to use interface for building mobile and Web apps, as well as “logic apps” that make it easy to combine APIs and services into business processes and workflows. You can connect that to your own systems like SQL Server using Azure BizTalk Services. What used to be an EDI and application integration tool that connected your different servers and systems has become a hybrid integration service, giving you a simple way to build business-grade workflow into apps, combining cloud services and APIs with information that lives inside your firewall.

Adaptive Solutions is a consulting firm that provides business intelligence and advance analytics services. To better serve their growing base of pharmaceutical, retail, education, and public sector clients, Adaptive needed to share information and ideas among all of their consultants regardless of where they are working. Tablets and mobile devices sync with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 to generate benefits in cost savings, collaboration, ease-of-use, and scalability.

Last week our CEO Satya Nadella announced a reorganization of our engineering groups that combined our client hardware and Windows teams, and moved Dynamics, our business process application group, into the cloud and enterprise division (C&E). The hardware and software move made clear sense in light of similar structures at Apple and Google. The Dynamics move to C&E may not be as clear and in fact I’ve received several questions from you, our clients about this. Moving Dynamics into Cloud + Enterprise not only represents Dynamics coming of age with solid growth and strong wave of innovate solutions, but there is also a clear logic here that aligns well with the strategies of each division as well as broader trends in enterprise applications.

“By achieving a silver competency, organizations have proven their expertise in specific technology areas, placing them among the top 5 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide,” said Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp.